Maharashtra Lok Sabha Election Results 2024: Disappointment for women, jubilation for Marathi bloc

NCP (SP)’s Supriya Sule won in Baramati. Pic/Ashish Raje; (right) Sunetra Pawar, on an NCP (AP) ticket, lost to sister-in-law Supriya in Baramati

Only seven out of the 17 women candidates from Maharashtra were elected as Members of Parliament in this election. The state saw the maximum number of women in the main contest, but less than half succeeded. Meanwhile, the Marathi bloc rejoiced as Mumbai got five Marathi MPs this time, more than any election in recent history. The city had a straight fight between Marathi candidates for four seats. The only non-Marathi MP is from the BJP.

Only seven out of the 17 women candidates from Maharashtra were elected as Members of Parliament in this election. The state saw the maximum number of women in the main contest, but less than half of them succeeded. Four of the women MP were contesting on Congress tickets, while two were from BJP and one from NCP.

During this election, 16 of the 48 Lok Sabha constituencies witnessed electoral battles involving women candidates including one in Baramati, where sisters-in-law Supriya Sule and Sunetra Pawar faced off. In the 2019 general election, 11 women in in Maharashtra - mostly from political families - were in the race and eight went on to become MPs.

Shinde Sena man Ravindra Waikar won the Mumbai North West seat by a narrow margin. Pic/Satej Shinde

There were two major alliances comprising six political parties in the fray. The Mahayuti - which includes the BJP, Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) and NCP - had 10 women candidates in total while the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) - comprising Congress, Sena UBT and NCP (SP) - was fielding seven women.
The BJP, contesting 28 seats in the state, had given tickets to six women. Of these, only two - Smita Wagh from Jalgaon and Raksha Khadse from Raver - won with a margin of more than 2.5 lakh votes.

The Congress was in the fray for 17 seats, of which four were contested by women. The party had announced the Ramtek seat for Rashmi Barve but she couldn't contest due to a caste certificate issue. But the four women who contested on a Congress ticket - Varsha Gaikwad (Mumbai North Central), Dr Shobha Bachhav (Dhule), Pratibha Dhanorkar (Chandrapur) and Praniti Shinde (Solapur) - made it to parliament.

Varsha Gaikwad won the Mumbai North Central seat on a Congress ticket. Pic/Atul Kamble

The NCP (SP) declared Supriya Sule as a candidate from Baramati, resulting in an interesting clash between Sharad Pawar's daughter and daughter-in-law Sunetra Pawar. Sule won with a margin of over 1.5 lakh votes after a close fight. The party's woman power is concentrated in North Maharashtra because it fielded four female aspirants from there.

The Shinde Sena had declared two women candidates for its share of 15 seats, while its alliance partner, the NCP (Ajit Pawar) group contested four seats, two of which had women candidates Sunetra Pawar (Baramati) and Archana Patil (Osmanabad).

In 2019, 11 women candidates contested the general election and there were two constituencies in which women stood against each other. Though there is reservation for women in local bodies, there isn't any reservation for women in the highest house of the nation despite it being in discussion for at least two decades. In 2019, 724 women contested the Lok Sabha election across India and 78 were voted to power - the highest number to date. Of these 78 parliamentarians, 11 were from West Bengal and 10 from Uttar Pradesh.

MMR situation

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) with a population of 2.29 crore, had four women candidates on 10 seats, but only one succeeded. MLA Yamini Jadhav contested from the Mumbai South constituency on Shinde Sena ticket but lost with a margin of over 50,000 votes. Sena (UBT), which was contesting 21 seats, gave tickets to Vaishali Darekar (Kalyan) and Bharati Kamdi (Palghar). Both lost by huge margins. Congress Mumbai unit president Varsha Gaikwad wanted to contest from South Central but was fielded from North Central. She managed to secure a seat in parliament and is the only woman candidate to represent MMR.

17
Total No. of women candidates from state

Women candidates

Congress (17 seats)
. Varsha Gaikwad (Mumbai North Central) - won with 16,514 margin
. Dr Shobha Bachhav (Dhule) - won with 3,833 margin
. Pratibha Dhanorkar (Chandrapur) - won with 2.6 lakh margin
. Praniti Shinde (Solapur) - won with 77,224 margin

NCP - SP (10 seats)
. Supriya Sule (Baramati) - won with 1.53 lakh margin
. Shiv Sena UBT (21 seats)
. Vaishali Darekar (Kalyan) - lost by 3.80 lakh votes
. Bharti Kamdi (Palghar) - lost by 1.83 lakh votes

BJP (28 seats)
. Smita Wagh (Jalgaon) - won with 2.51 lakh margin
. Raksha Khadse (Raver) - won with 2.72 lakh margin
. Heena Gavit (Nandurbar) - lost by 1.59 lakh votes
. Pankaja Munde (Beed) - lost by 6,553 votes
. Bharati Pawar (Dindori) - lost by 1.13 lakh votes
. Navneet Rana (Amravati) - lost by 19,731 votes
. Shiv Sena Shinde (15 seats)
. Yaminin Jadhav (Mumbai South) - lost by 52,673 votes
. Rajashree Patil (Yavatmal) - lost by 94,473 votes

NCP - AP (4 seats)
. Sunetra Pawar (Baramati) - lost by 1.58 lakh votes
. Archana Patil (Osmanabad) - lost by 3.30 lakh votes